


necrosis

by queenofcawdor (orphan_account)



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Corruption, Crime Fighting, Crimes & Criminals, Dark is Not Always Evil, F/F, Good and Evil, Heroes to Villains, Identity Porn, Multi, Strong Friendships, and harley doesn't fall in love with the joker, au where the waynes died bc of disease instead of crime, lesbian villains
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 15:16:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4024750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/queenofcawdor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce Wayne doesn't lose his parents to a mugger. He doesn't grow to hate crime.<br/>He loses them to ineffective doctors and lethal diseases. He learns to hate disease.<br/>He studies medicine before combat, and he directs his new friend Harley away from a place in Arkham Asylum. </p><p>She meets a woman with bright red hair with a love for plants instead of a man with dark green hair and a love for chaos.</p><p>A story can change its start, but its characters will refuse to depart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	necrosis

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from _Demons_ by Фёдор Достоевский (Fyodor Dostoevsky) bc he's the bae  
>  also i have no idea where tf this story came from sorry

It’s dark outside, and the noise of _Der Fledermaus_ abruptly cuts off as Bruce Wayne’s father and mother lead him outside. A common mugger is waiting, nearby, for the show to end. In another world, he might have hurt them. In another, he might have killed them. In this world, he saw a young boy’s tears and thought of his own daughter, and he let them pass untouched.

Bruce Wayne loses his parents a later night, when his father cries in front of him as Bruce stares at his mother, her hands cold and her head bald and her eyes vacant. Bruce is twelve years old and too old to be crying. He does, anyways. His father dies two years later of a heart attack, and Bruce hates the cameras and headlines almost as much as the crushing emptiness of his life.

He studies in school, then. Because if doctors in Gotham cared more about curing people and less about their wealth, he’d have to be the one healing. He is accepted into a university without using any of his connections, and he notices Alfred hiding a smile. He hopes he can one day respond, but right now, his mouth feels too heavy to lift in anything genuine.

Bruce is not popular in college because of his intelligence but rather in spite of it. He sees the intimidation flicker in his classmates’ eyes. He knows what they think of him, as with his money and smarts and endless amounts of people throwing themselves at him. As he graduates into medical school, he starts forming a careful friendship with a young blonde girl who has never needed to study psychology to understand it. She teaches him how to fight; he teaches her about strength.

Her name is Harleen Quinzel, and Bruce finally feels a connection. Harley spots an opening at Arkham Asylum, and she hopes to take it.

“C’mon, Brucey, you know I’d rock it!” Harley pouts up at Bruce, her legs swaying above her head.

“That’s not the reason, Harley. They have dangerous people there. Gotham could kill you,” Bruce replies, hoping beyond himself that his voice would remain steady. Gotham doesn’t just kill through violence.

Harley turns upright, and she soon takes a position in a research facility in Metropolis alongside Bruce. She never works in Arkham. She never meets a silly genius man with green hair and a white face and a name like Mister J.

She instead meets a redhead and knows the movement of her hands and shape of her lips before she knows her name.

“Pamela Isley, pleasure,” the redhead says when they share a project together. Dr. Isley is studying plant toxins, and she protests against environmental degradation whenever she finds time. Harley wonders if she blushes before responding, but Bruce has taught her how to be conspicuous.

Pam tells her one day about the head psychiatrist of Arkham Asylum. Dr. Jonathan Crane is a pretty man with a dark smirk. She tells Harley that he experiments on his patients.

Harley is never more disgusted than this. She thinks to herself, Do no harm. She passes this onto Bruce, who gets a look on his face like someone squished a bug somewhere by one of those cheekbones. She wants to giggle, but she wants to be mature now, for Bruce, even if it hurts to hide a smile. Bruce is a little too serious, she decides, and turns.

Bruce watches her leave and perch herself just a bit too close to Dr. Isley than what is considered platonic, and he wonders. Wonders why he lets himself get distracted with friends when he hasn’t cured any cancer. Wonders why he’s thinking about Gotham before he’s trained enough to help it. Still, a corrupt doctor, an evil doctor like Jonathan Crane, is unfit to work. He only has hearsay, so he researches to find a good investigative reporter to make the news public. Crane would have nowhere to run.

He doesn’t want one who could be corrupted, so he narrows his search to reporters operating in Metropolis. A golden city with a gleaming savior like Superman does not produce corruption. He pauses by an attractive reporter with curls like night and eyes brighter than the sky and wants to meet him. He digs further until he finds contact information

“Hello, is this Clark Kent?” Bruce’s call begins in the lower tone he’s become adjusted to using.

“...Yes, may I ask who this is?” Bruce likes that voice. It’s clear without being brash. He knows he’s being a little silly over an attractive man, but it’s been so long since he’s let himself feel anything at all.

He notices his own pause is stretching out too long, and responds, “Yes, this is Dr. Bruce Wayne. I’ve heard that at least one doctor in Gotham’s Arkham Asylum is committing malpractice.”

“And you call Metropolis.”

“Look, I’m from Gotham. I can’t trust our people. Metropolis doesn’t have that level of easy corruption. At least hear me out, over lunch, perhaps,” Bruce really hopes that he didn’t just ask a man he’s never met out. Unless Kent responds. Then, he’s really not that displeased.

“Okay, fine. I don’t have much work right now. Where would we meet?”

And so Bruce lets a smile tug at his lips.

Oh God, Bruce hopes he’s not hearing Harley quite-literally throw herself at poor Dr. Isley. Or said doctor carry out his longest friend.

Bruce represses things well. He sets a timer on his newest experiment, and leaves for lunch.


End file.
